A cancelled flight just minutes before heading to the Detroit Metro Airport wasn’t going to keep me from attending my first Accelerating Health Equity Conference. After scrambling to find a rental car on a Sunday morning, we knew we had a long road ahead of us. It took 13 hours of driving, but on Monday afternoon, my wife and I finally arrived in downtown Minneapolis.

Passionate Presentations

As a sponsor of the event, one of the privileges we as a company had was to introduce 8 of the breakout sessions. I was able to introduce 2 of them: one on Tuesday, and the last session of the conference on Thursday.

Introducing allowed me to get to know the presenters a little bit before their talk, as well as be more engaged throughout the presentation. One thing that stood out to me was the level of detail and passion that each presenter has for the well-being of their community.

In both sessions, it was highlighted many times how much their roles have changed since 2020. The level of care and compassion that the people working in hospitals have for their communities was truly inspiring.

Awesome Attendees

When I wasn’t presenting, I was at the front corner of the exhibit hall at our table talking to the attendees. I got a strong sense from our short conversations that they were truly engaged in doing the necessary work to continue advancing community benefit initiatives.

Everyone was very friendly and I could tell that they were genuinely happy to be there and learning from each other. I never realized how much collaboration goes on between employees of various healthcare organizations. As a first-time attendee, it was really remarkable to witness.

Final Farewell

After 3 exceptional days in Minneapolis, I was actually sad to see it end on Thursday afternoon. This was the first time I got to meet so many of our clients in person, and it was really nice to connect with them and get an up close look at what’s going on in the world of healthcare and community benefit.

Before leaving the hotel and heading for the Mall of America (it can’t be all business, right?) I took one more walk up to the exhibit hall on the 3^rd floor. I just wanted to take it all in one last time.

It didn’t even look like the same room! Where we had packed up our materials just a couple hours earlier, the space was completely changed over from rows of tables and backdrops to an entire room of round tables. The hotel staff was already preparing for the next event. I was amazed at how quickly they changed over the room.

Save the Date

If you’ve never experienced the Accelerating Health Equity Conference, I highly recommend it. I was blown away by the presentations and hearing about all the great work in healthcare that is going on all over the country. Next year’s event is scheduled for May 7^th – 9^th in Kansas City.